Criminal gang leader Bello Turji forces over 5,000 Nigerians to flee their homes

More than 5,000 residents from more than a dozen rural communities in Nigeria's northwestern Sokoto state have fled their homes after a criminal kingpin ordered they leave, a lawmaker and residents told AFP on Monday.

Northwest and central Nigeria have been plagued by gangs of heavily armed criminals, known as bandits, who stage deadly raids on villages and kidnap residents for ransom.

The increasing cooperation between criminal gangs motivated by financial gain and militant insurgents waging a 16-year-long armed insurrection for a caliphate in Nigeria's northeast has compounded the situation.

The bandits killed at least 12 people to force residents to leave, Habibu Halilu Modachi, a local lawmaker, told AFP, warning the death toll and number of displaced could increase as reports were still coming in.

Threats of attacks

"Between Saturday and Sunday, over 5,000 people have been forced out of their homes in Bafarawa and several nearby communities as a result of threats of attack from Bello Turji," a notorious bandit leader in the region, said Modachi.

"Turji sent his men to these communities and asked them to leave by Sunday afternoon or risk being killed."

The evacuation is aimed at clearing the area of its population, who the bandits accuse of providing information to the military about their locations.

Residents of several villages in Isa district near the border with Niger fled their homes on Saturday through Sunday following threats of attacks by criminal gangs who ordered them to leave on Turji's orders, the sources said.

Deadly attacks

The displaced were taking shelter in Isa town and in Shinkafi in neighbouring Zamfara state, as well as with relations in relatively safer far-away communities.

"Even this morning the bandits killed two people, injured nine and kidnapped seven others," Modachi said.

Abubakar Altine said eight people were killed and 20 wounded by the bandits on Saturday, when they attacked his community and asked people to leave.

"We fled to Isa where we are living with no food or shelter. We don't know what to do," Altine told AFP by phone.

'Firing indiscriminately'

Ahmad Abdullahi, who also fled to Isa, said the bandits entered his village and asked everyone to evacuate.

"They kept firing indiscriminately and seized money, foodstuffs and anything of value from residents," Abdullahi said.

Turji, 31, dumped herding and turned to cattle rustling and kidnapping for ransom in 2011.

He fled his town of Shinkafi in Zamfara state for Sokoto state where he set up bases following extensive Nigerian military air strikes on his camps in December 2021.

Peace agreements breached

The kingpin had made several peace agreements with Zamfara state authorities, only for him to renege and resume attacks on communities.

Turji is highly respected by his men and feared by communities he terrorises who believe he has supernatural powers which make him invincible, according to residents and security sources.

He took control of three districts where he imposes levies on communities and conducts deadly raids on those that fail to pay, sparing no one, including women and children, according to residents.

In February 2021, Turji appeared in a widely circulated video threatening to invite foreign gangs to destabilise Nigeria.

In January, Nigerian military conducted aerial bombings on Turji's camps in Sokoto and Zamfara states, killing several of his lieutenants and forcing him to go underground.